1 Second Time Machine
One of the advantages of being married to a tech-geek (who also happens to be a pack-rat) is there is never a shortage of old computer equipment for pretend play! This afternoon, Emily asked me if there was a way to stop time, which reminded me of a clip from the movie The Science of Sleep. If you haven’t seen the 1 second time machine clip, you can view it here.
We built our own version of a 1 second time machine using lots of Mark’s old computer junk. Just looking at this stuff made it feel like a real time machine for me! A Commodore 64??? Really??? You’re saving that?????
I covered the coffee table with aluminum foil for added sci-fi drama, and let Emily arrange the antique computers how she wanted them. Then it was time to play!
Basically, the one who is wearing the headphones is “in” the time machine, in this case Emily. She would press a bunch of buttons and then I would pretend it worked by repeating the last second of whatever I was doing whenever she ejected the floppy disk from the drive. She thought this was HILARIOUS!
This quickly became more than just a 1 second time machine, and was soon transformed into a tele-transporter which sent us on adventures all over the world. We made several stops at China, Disney World, and Grandma’s house. I was surprised at her suggestions for where we would go back in time…. She wanted to go back on vacation, to Clara’s birthday party, and to Christmas, to name just a few of our destinations.
The phone was used to call people from the future. Here she is calling a bank to find out that they have money that talks in the future!
She enjoyed time travel very much, but was quite relieved to make it back to the “present”, and have an afternoon snack!
